Fallout: Van Buren, the Novelization
by docs pupil
Summary: After the Great War, the American Southwest's old secrets are being exploited by powers greater than any one man. An enigmatic figure simply known as the Prisoner finds themselves in the middle of it all while seeking freedom from government rule. The cancelled '90's game by Black Isle studios is now available as a series of fictions in an attempt at canonical novelization.
1. Tibbets Prison

_(Author's Note: I am not using the theoretical default model described by the game play notes but have opted to "customize" the main character to my own preferences. I have, however, tried to stay in keeping with every other aspect of the game apart from this.)_

Tibbets Prison

A loud klaxon from not too far off startles the young woman awake in her bunk. She leaps to her feet, keeping her arms rigid at her sides, as they trained all prisoners to do. When no guard can be heard shouting roll call, or the klaxon turning off, she gets nervous. The young woman "breaks formation", as the guards liked to call it, to nose around the immediate surroundings.

She hadn't given the appearance of her cell much thought, but it dawns on her that the prison cell's interior and her clothed exterior are actually different. The light bulb and chain is now a large, rusty lamp hanging precariously by a flimsy steel chain, the two single cots on either side of the small cell are now two double bunks still at opposite ends, with the other bunks unoccupied. The bathroom facilities, however, haven't improved.

The woman presses her face against the foreign cell bars for a better look outside. "Hello?!" The halls to her left and right are devoid of uniformed sentries, familiar or otherwise. "Guard?!" She shouts a few more times, wondering why her grey jumper with the numerical bar code on the breast pocket is suddenly a sleeveless blue jumper with a yellow border and no number code.

The ground beneath her feet shakes violently as a distant rumble reverberates through the cold, cement foundation. She looses her footing, falling onto her backside with a hard thump.

A series of earthshaking hiccups cracks the surrounding cement walls from the ground up.

The lady makes an attempt to stand in between the violent, irregular tremors. The thin chain holding the lamp to the cracking ceiling falls free, dropping it onto her head. She crumples to the ground, unconscious.

The lady Prisoner comes too some time later, holding her aching head as she finds her bearings in the conscious world. The throbbing knot at the top of her head answers her question as to why the rusty lamp is sitting on the cracked, grey floor next to her.

"FREEDOM," someone shouts from down the adjacent hall.

In unison, heavy metal gates of nearby cells swing open. Dozens of pairs of frantic feet stream into the halls, loudly racing toward any feasible exit, even the very prominent hole in the wall inches away from the block of cells.

The mass escape happening outside her open cell presses the young woman into action. Cautious and cringing, she steps through the open cell gate and crosses to the blasted-out wall one foot at a time, holding her breath.

"Halt," the modulated, metallic voice of a Robo-Brain commands, raising it's only weaponized arm toward the girl. "Do not escape!"

She exhales, making a mad dash through the hole to the other building on the opposite side of the large, dirt prison yard. Her first thought is to climb the twenty foot fence surrounding the perimeter, but climbing twenty feet of fence with others trying to kick you off seems more dangerous than finding a hiding place in the nearest building.

The Prisoner does her best to avoid the yard skirmishes between the similarly dressed inmates of this foreign facility, and military guards in their unmistakable tan and brown uniforms. As she races through the unhinged door of a cement building with the Pre-War symbols for medicine and science painted on its sides, a barrage of rifle fire from inside disables an aged Robo-Brain from behind, shattering its brain case.

Four Republic soldiers wearing silver chest plates run by, shouting to anyone who can hear that they have their freedom if they can get out.

The Prisoner immediately crouches, ducking underneath a desk near the entrance way. She waits for the soldiers to exit before crawling along the dusty floor on her hands and knees toward the science labs. More out of a morbid sense of curiosity than anything else, the young woman sneaks down the hallway, poking her head into every room along the way. She finds two bottles of clean water and a roll of bandages inside a derelict break room, saving it for future use.

The hollering and gunfire in the distance begins to fade away the farther she heads down the hallway. On tiptoe, she inches along the hall, keeping her sweaty hands primed for anything.

The young woman flattens against the wall as familiar heavy boots rush by the adjacent hall. As the figure stops to check its bearings, she catches sight of the uniform connected to the boots, and is confused for a moment. The cloth may be the same dirt color as the NCR, but the plating is all wrong, like before, and so is the strangers weapon of choice.

"They don't have Gauss rifles and silver chest plates," she mentally notes, furrowing her brow in confusion.

The booted man consults a picture in his gloved hand before running down the hall once more.

She runs down the corridor in the opposite direction, seeing an open lab door at the far left end. The cracked door leads to a recently vacated lab with some of the experiments still in the process of being set up on the long, wooden tables.

"Is that…" The Prisoner stares wide-eyed at the genuine Vault-Tec issued Pip-Boy, feeling her itchy fingers demand she take the object. Being well-read in the modern sciences from her years of incarceration, pictures from Pre-War magazines about Vault-Tec technologies always intrigued her, and having a near mint relic sitting powered down in front of her is too tempting to pass up.

Her penile servitude has curbed her urges to steal and pickpocket, but she also needs a map of the outside if she is too survive her escape. Her divided mind wrestles with itself only interrupted by a loud crash and bang from just outside the open door. The young lady scampers under a table, cringing at the sound of rusty treads squeaking over the grey tile floor.

The clearly unstable sentry bot waves its equally erratic arms and claws about the place, knocking electronics and scrap parts to the ground, shouting for any and all nearby prisoners to stop escaping and go back to their cells. She watches as the olive colored robot makes a round of the room before it suddenly short circuits and stops dead at the doorway.

The woman waits for what seems like minutes before poking her head out from under the table. She sees the bot still motionless and still blocking her only escape from the electronics laboratory. Without a second thought, the girl takes the Pip-Boy, fitting it onto her wrist. To her surprise, the screen stays black.

A large spark thunders through the Robo-Brain head case, jolting the machine back to life. It turns it's chassis one hundred eighty degrees wheeling backward toward her. "Halt!"

The Prisoner lifts her gaze to meet the simulated voice, but the table between them pins her against the computer desk.

The Robo-Brain swipes at the young woman as it keeps up its advance, squeezing her tighter against the desk. It catches her angry, grabby hands in each two-pronged claw, digging the cold, sharp metal into her tan, squishy flesh.

She isn't sure what's worse, the table squeezing her in half, or the robotic pincers crippling the palms of her hands. She tries to cry out to the other prisoners racing up and down just outside the door, but the air in her lungs is progressively being forced out of her inch by inch.

From the open doorway, a deep, feminine voice says "Emergency override code four-four-six-nine-eight-Jilly."

The Robo-Brain's treads go still, humming quietly in place.

"Return to base."

It does as it's told, letting the girl and table go. It wheels out and down the left hall.

The Prisoner doubles over, coughing and cradling her torso. "Thank you *cough* whoever you are," she rasps.

The middle-aged Hispanic woman in a tight ponytail gives her younger, braided counterpart a once over before giving a rebuttal. "Do you know why you're here?"

The Prisoner shakes her head, standing back upright. "Do you?"

The older woman's grey eyes fall on the dead Pip-Boy strapped to her right wrist. "The glove is the second, exterior part of the battery on a Pip-Boy." She overturns boxes all over the laboratory until the dark grey glove is found. "The bio-electrical impulses of the wearer's body are synced to the glove-"

"Which is then collected and converted in the nodule on the leather gauntlet to power the internal battery of the Pip-Boy," the younger of the two finishes.

She throws her the article, watching her grimace as she slips it over her fresh puncture wounds.

Chunks of green lettered data flash across the screen for several minutes before a generic outline of a labeled body dominates the miniature screen.

The woman sidesteps to the terminal on the desk behind her. With a proficiency that only comes from years upon years of computer training, she hacks the difficult system with ease, reading over the logs on the screen.

A name in the capitalized header catches the Prisoner's eye. "Who's Doctor Presper? Is he the Warden?"

The older woman skims through the last log ignoring her question. "Put these map coordinates into your Pip-Boy," she orders, rambling off numbers in quick succession.

The young lady does as she told, seeing the wrist computer fill in the landscape with a negative green image of land one square section at a time.

The older woman logs off, leaving as swiftly as she came. "Are you going or staying," she asks.

The Prisoner swallows her shock at gruff helpfulness of the woman. "Going?"

"Then stay close, you have the escape route," the woman says, turning to leave.

She keeps a few steps behind her savior, seeing her lead them both deeper into the science facilities.

"I never got your name, Miss," the young lady points out, keeping her eyes peeled for the out of uniform soldier.

The older woman rounds a corner, scanning the letters and numerals on each of the doors. "Just nine." She indicates the bold, yellow number sewn into the back of her sleeveless jumpsuit with a jab of her finger.

"Then I'm thirteen, thanks for saving me."

Nine stops at a door labeled "MAIN OFFICE 2", shaking the door knob. When the lock doesn't yield, the woman kicks at the door a couple of times, but even that doesn't work.

"Go away!" A man's voice shouts, cocking a heavy pistol. "They're my guns!"

"We need those," she says without hesitation, looking the unsure younger woman in the eye. "For outside."

The young girl's first instinct is to scamper away and look for a less violent room with available weapons, but her new partner doesn't yield to her suggestion. She swallows hard, ignoring her twisting guts. "Then allow me." The Prisoner takes a hidden hairpin from her long braid, sliding it gently into the locked knob. She gingerly moves the pin into the place, trying to lever the lock face with her nail.

"That won't work." From a leg pocket of her blue jumper, she hands her a dwarfed screwdriver. "Try this."

Keeping the pin carefully in place, the young woman twists left and right until the lock clicks open. As soon as she opens the door, gunshots fly past them as they huddle against the opposite ends of the doorway.

"I said go away!"

"Now what do we do," Thirteen wonders, cringing.

"Stop shooting at us," she demands, keeping her voice loud and even. "We're here to help!"

The man shoots at them again, emptying his clip.

The middle-aged woman shoves her way past the upturned furniture, making a grab for the empty weapon in his hand.

They grapple back and forth for the single gun until Thirteen takes up the other laying on the desk, pointing it at the cowering man in the office.

He lets the woman wrench the gun from his hands as he raises them at the younger woman's behest.

Nine knocks him unconscious with the butt of the pistol, rummaging through his jumper pockets for an extra clip. She sighs in disappointment. "Nothing."

"Do you want mine?"

"You keep it." She searches through the overturned filing cabinet and the desk, scrounging up a newly sharpened letter opener. "You're going to need it out there."

Hearing rushed boot steps and shouted orders not too far away, they pocket their weapons, leaving hastily.

The Prisoner checks her Pip-Boy, still on the run. "At the end of the hallway there's a window that leads back out to the yard."

"Better than nothing."

The small, high window deters neither of them very long. The two drag a heavy desk to the underside of the unbarred rectangle, forcing the rusted pane open far enough for them to squeeze through.

A pair of Republic soldiers happen along down the other end of the hallway, each holding a piece of paper. One of them checks their note with a quick glance. "Hey you!"

As the older of the two reaches back through the rectangular pane, the younger turns to see who's shouting. She recognizes the incongruous higher tech armaments of them both, like the one searching with his photograph.

"Stop right there!" They aim their Gauss rifles at her just as she ducks out of the way of the energy bullet.

"I'll find you," she shouts toward the poking face in the window, ducking away from the high powered energy shots. "From the map!"

She nods, slamming the pane shut.

Thirteen runs for her life at the sound of heavy boots pounding toward her direction. She darts around random corners, avoiding smaller offices until she happens along the back entrance of the Science/Medicine building, her assailants not too far behind. The young lady bursts through the back double doors into the mayhem of the yard once more.

The pair loose her in the numerous skirmishes happening all through the dirt grounds, distracted by the threats and weapons thrown in their direction.

The girl crouches low in the middle of the frenzy, checking her wrist bound computer for directions. When she finds what she needs, the Prisoner pushes and shoves and punches her way to the west side of the grounds, toward the Cafeteria building labeled with a pyramid cut into six stacked trapezoids.

Thirteen rushes toward the back of the building to the largest room inside, the kitchens and dining area. She runs as fast as her booted feet can carry her, finally collapsing on the floor in the midst of the kitchen shelves and appliances abandoned haphazardly everywhere. As she catches her breath, she grabs onto the nearest solid object to keep her scared, spinning head grounded in reality.

The mostly empty shelving wobbles on a loose tile as she drags herself to her feet.

The Prisoner inches the feet taller metal shelf across the grey and white tiled floor until she can make out a cluster of six loose tiles underneath. She grabs for the nearest kitchen utensil and pries up the corner of the flooring, placing them off to the side one at a time.

Underneath the floor is a hole just big enough for a large man to fit through, and more than enough breadth for a medium sized woman such as herself.

She wonders to herself how far the hole actually goes as she begins to scoop out handfuls of the compacted dirt blocking the way down.

"Yield, now!"

She almost jumps out of her skin at the shouted order before realizing it wasn't meant for her, but in the dining area next door.

The young woman peeks her head through the small serving opening, seeing two regular NCR soldiers holding Nine at gunpoint.

The older woman raises her hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

"Do you surrender, prisoner!"

The woman does just that, cringing as she gets to her knees.

From her leg pocket, Thirteen pulls out her stolen pistol, aiming it through the serving window. She takes careful aim, not daring to waste a single one of her fourteen bullets.

"Will you get back in your cell voluntarily," the one on the left asks her roughly.

She sighs, but keeps her tone absolute. "No."

All at once, her perception slows to a stop and her whole field of view becomes a large green-grid landscape. As she moves her unbelieving eyes about, the people in her field of view are segmented into their individual body parts as well.

She whispers a "wow" under her breath, picking the nearest arms of the rifle-toting soldiers. As her unconsciously held breath is let go, the shots crack off in quick succession, crippling their shooting arms.

"Over here," she loudly orders of her friend, watching as they drop their weapons immediately, gripping their arms in agony.

She follows the young lady to the kitchen, bolting the door behind herself. With any miscellaneous large kitchen appliances she blocks the serving window, hurrying to her younger counterparts side.

The two women frantically dig out the dirt hole until the bottom gives way to a deep cool pit and a shaped mound at the bottom.

The crippled soldiers on the other side can be hear shouting away from the kitchen area in an excited manner. Extra boots clopping along the mostly clean tiled floor makes a bee-line toward the prisoners' location.

"We know you're in there! Come out!" Angry fists pound on the decrepit brushed steel door.

"They'll follow us," Nine states plainly eyeballing the rest of the kitchen. "We need a distraction."

Thirteen dangles her legs over the unstable lip of the pit, readying herself to jump. "We just need to hurry, come on!"

The freshly arrived soldiers use the butts of their rifles to knock away the wedged appliances in the window. One of them manage to fit their weapon barrel though the near unblocked window.

"Yield, now," he demands, cocking his weapon as a subtle warning.

"Gillian," the woman whispers in her ear, pushing both her hands into the middle of her back.

Thirteen lets out a cry of surprise from her sudden hard shove before landing face down in moist dirt at the bottom of the pit. By the time she looks up toward the dim light of the prison, two guards holding their bleeding arms look down into the pit as another one crosses behind the hole toward where the woman was. From above, all she can vaguely make out from the reverberation is "leave her for the-" and "we almost got the other one."

The soldiers point their guns down the hole, forcing their escaped prisoner to run farther down the long, musty corridor out of fear of being shot.


	2. The Undercave System

_(Author's Note: In keeping with the canon rules of the Fallout Universe, there are always many ways to approach any problem faced by your character. In this instance, I plan to use a mostly Stealth-based approach with a diminished Strength, high Intelligence character. I apologize in advance for my obvious bias toward Stealth, Diplomacy, and question asking, as I usually do this when playing an actual Fallout game. I shall try my best to equally represent, or at least mention, all approaches to a problem in later chapters. If you are curious about my Player Character's S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats, do not hesitate to ask.)_

The Undercave System

In her haste, the Prisoner face-plants into a dirt wall in the smothering darkness. "Oof!"

The soft earthen wall absorbs most of the impact, sending a small avalanche of loose dirt down upon her head.

The young woman dusts the top of her head, looking about herself for a clue as to where her escape is leading to. As she feels about the crumbling, irregular tunnel walls in the utter dark, the weigh on her wrist reminds her of the technological marvel wrapped securely around it. With her keen scientific eye, she pushes buttons and scrolls through the green lit menus until the flashlight clicks on.

Based on the curve of the shadows cast by the Pip-Boy, the cool dirt of the marred cave walls forks off to the left and right, both directions equally uninviting beyond the reach of the light. Instead of fighting her own unique brand of luck, she picks the left side cave, walking along the uneven ground carefully and quietly.

After a few short minutes, the curve in the dirt tunnel seems to straighten out sharply and dip downwards ever-so-slightly, with the ground paralleling in tandem.

The Prisoner's cautious nature brings her gait to a slow crawl as she treks along farther, feeling the downward slope increase. The light of the wrist computer finds the edge of the slope, shadowing over a dull onyx-colored shape at the bottom of the sudden drop off.

She creeps to the edge, throwing her white beam down into the hole.

Three pairs of searching, jet black eyes stare unflinchingly back into the light from above. The unpolished shine begins to shake free of the mounds of dirt compacted around it, bringing a hulking insectoid form out of its dirt nest.

In her growing panic, the young woman stares open-mouthed in disbelief at the impossible feat of biology towering over her. The Prisoner darts back the way she came, her fear pushing her faster and faster as she runs.

Clacks and chitters cut through the heavy air not far behind as its prey rounds the corner toward the right hand tunnel. The heavy thudding of the monster's six legs follows her around the corner, gaining on her every passing moment.

She ducks out of the way of the low ceiling huffing and puffing down the narrow passage beyond her white light. A hard, heavy thump back at the low entrance stops the Prisoner in her tracks with a side-long glance.

The grating, screeching cries of the giant scorpion echos down the other hall as it attempts to ramrod its way into the too small tunnel. It scratches angrily at the dirt walls with it's snapping claws, but can't seen to fit any more than the front of its low-set head.

The young woman clicks off her light and crouches, staying as immobile as possible, even through the scared tremors.

The giant menace quickly looses its interest, leaving the comparatively small morsel of a human to their quiet panicking.

The Prisoner calms down enough to grope for her bearings in the dark. Far off scratchy thuds and then complete silence tells the woman that all may be fine enough to carry on. She clicks her light back on, continuing her journey with more caution this time.

After traveling in a mostly straight line for a handful of minutes, the tight walls meet with a curved open space that stretches farther off into the distance. One of her slowed down steps crunches down on something hard and irregularly shaped on the cool, dark ground of the tunnel. She drops her light down curious as to what kind of large rock would naturally crunch underfoot.

The young woman gasps at the broken skeletal remains of an obviously human arm.

What sounds like shifting pebbles and dirt from behind her distracts from the dirty gore in front of her.

The Prisoner, fearing the worst, turns to see what could possibly displace so much dirt in so little time.

At the very edge of the white beam, a smaller, but still equally ferocious, shinning opal of a scorpion stares her down with all six of its beady eyes.

The woman, seeing no room for maneuvering for a quick escape, stays stock still, waiting for the animal to make the first move.

It fidgets in the dark, taking steps here and there toward the source of the light. It feels around the heavy air with random swings of its claws, as if it can't seem to find the one living thing standing only a few feet from him.

Her brow furrows in confusion as she watches the man-sized scorpion groping awkwardly in the mostly dark cave. "It's...blind," she mutters to herself, keeping a still as the surrounding stone.

Rhythmic screeches and clacks from farther down the other side of the cave room leads the blind thing away and down another assumed tunnel way.

She lets out a sigh of relief, making a mental note of this new piece of information as she collects decently sized rocks and small piece of bone scatter around the floor before making her way toward where the scorpion echoed from.

Keeping low against the walls of the claustrophobic cave and her white light as much ahead of her as possible, she crawls on her hands and knees along a similar path of her assailant.

Unlike the gradual slope of the former pit on the other side, the irregular lip of this one drops abruptly, then meanders off toward a cavern that's currently populated by a large congregation of jet black, man-sized scorpions. Many of them seem to be tearing apart large chucks of meaty things being dropped from a sunlit hole farther off, while others fight over the bigger pieces.

"Eat up boys!" An overly-excited voice rings through the cave as more hunks of meat are thrown down from the sunlit hole above. "There's always more where that came from!"

"I have to get to that hole. But how?" She stays crouched, taking careful stock of where the hole is, how many insects between her and the exit, and how long the food would last.

Her only feasible exit closes up once more with a distant "ker chunk", leaving her in the poorly lit dark with more than a dozen blind scorpions and a pocket full of rocks and bone. With a deep breath and a few moments of egging on from herself, she gently lowers herself down the waist-high side of the lowered cave floor, and treads as silently and hurriedly as possible between the monstrosities and their bloody snacks.

A nearby scorpion backs a little too close towards the frightened human, knocking her gently back onto the ground with a heavy nudge of the back of its tail. It swings its tail as it awkwardly tries to turn around in the crowded feeding cavern to see what it stumbled into.

The Prisoner holds her breath, taking a piece of heavy bone from her left jumper pocket and flings it hard at the assumed face of the closes monster behind the one nearest her.

It shakes off the assault, seemingly annoyed, and swipes at it's turning brother, landing a hard smack to its torso.

The offended party ignores the downed human, swiveling on its six legs and swiping back, harder.

The insect violence quickly escalates, giving the girl enough room to maneuver out of sight behind a boulder. She concentrates on evening out her breaths, seeing another giant approaching her means of cover.

It hunkers down in her direct path, shoveling dirt over itself with its sharp, massive claws. It buries itself legs-deep into the ground, settling down for a rest.

She silently curses to herself, taking two rocks from her pocket. With a hard, downward snap of her wrist, she hits the back of the slumbering beast's head with the pointed ends of the pebbles.

It reflexively attacks the assailant on its head with an angry sting, incapacitating itself with its own venom.

The young lady vaults over the dying thing and makes a break for the other side. She slides to a stop and presses herself hard against the wall as one of the underground monsters drags the last piece of bloody meat away into the crowd. The woman grimaces as the decapitated torso leaves a trail of red in it's wake. She slips past, looking toward the mostly blocked exit just beyond her reach.

In the light of her Pip-Boy, the hole to what looks like a sunlit outside is being blocked by a rusted metal hatch. Built into the center is a dirt-covered wheel lock with an over-sized keyhole in the center. "Looks easy."

On tip toe, her fingers barely brush the wheel, making it impossible to pick her way to freedom from where she stands at the moment. "I can shoot it, I think." The young lady huffs an irritated breath, looking over her shoulder at the slowly thinning congregation of man-sized scorpions either digging themselves to sleep or wandering away to the far shadows. She discounts the aggressive course of action, thinking harder. "If I knew how to fix Pre-War doors, I would know what bolts to remove, but I don't." The girl lets her over-worked mind wander as she stares up at the bolted door. An idea hits her as her eyes wander over the irregular dirt and rock walls surrounding her.

She grunts and groans as quietly as she can as she uses her meager upper body and leg strength to wedge herself high enough against the close-set walls to leave her hands free for lock picking. A few awkward and painful back slides down the rocky wall are made before she manages to find just the perfect wedge for her boots and aching back.

The Prisoner wiggles the pin gently into place as she wrenches the face of the lock left and right. Before her legs can give out, the tumblers of the metal hatch slide, and she grabs at the wheel for dear life with one hand, putting away her tools. With both hands firmly on the wheel, she kicks her body hard to left twice, spinning it open.

Thin strands of warm light stream in through the open crack as she gets her footing once more, taking most of the weight off her tired arms.

The heavy metal scrapes along its hinges as it folds up and out into a bright sunny world.

One hand at a time, the Prisoner climbs out of the pit and into a shallow cave entrance being intruded upon by the bright sunlight of the late afternoon sun. She smiles and basks in her warmly lit freedom as she dusts off her jumpsuit. "It's beautiful," she says out loud, looking outside to the hard-baked desert wasteland stretching out before her. She closes the hatch, walking over to a downed wooden sign at the front of the cave.

Scribbled across the large piece of and wood on its stake are the words "Entrence Cavez". Underneath it is a symbol resembling the narrow pointed head and ears of a dog or fox looking creature.

She shrugs, setting it upright and moving on to the waiting outside world.


	3. The Great Southwestern Desert

Balding patches of scrubby desert grass sways stiffly back and forth under her steady boot steps as she makes her way across the empty expanse of her surroundings. Some distance ahead of her is the fidgety outline of an over-sized reptile-like creature squatting on its haunches on the hard-baked dirt.

Yielding to her cautious, yet curious, nature, she keeps an even pace on approach then hunkers down behind a Joshua tree as it takes a gander her way. She watches intently as it claws and hisses occasionally at a loose mound of dirt at its feet.

After a few minutes, the dirt shifts from the inside out, and a hairless, wrinkly mole-like animal bursts forth from the ground. It takes a headlong leap at the large lizard who swats at it angrily with just as much gusto. The two viciously spit and hiss back and forth until gun shots from the east force them to scatter in opposite directions.

Whooping and hollering can be heard as whomever these new arrivals are shoot off more shots on their running approach. As a few random shots hit the bipedal lizard square in the back, it gives one last guttural grunt before it falls face first to the ground, killing over pathetically.

The voices calm down as two forms in patchwork leather armor come to a stop at the grey purple carcass of their kill.

The shorter man on the left gives a groan of disapproval, scratching at the pointed patch of hair just above his right ear. " _More_ Gecko? I'm sick of Gecko Steaks."

The spike-haired men grab at an arm each and drag the limp creature across the desert leaving a trail of red lines in their wake.

"How about you shut up before I shoot you and drag you into camp to eat," the taller of the two demands, waving his rifle in the other's general direction. "Some of us need new armor after that 'fiasco' of yours."

"At least I got us some Brahmin meat."

The taller man scoffs. "Don't act like it's a big damn deal…"

They argue back and forth, heading back in the direction they ran from.

The Prisoner waits until the men are out of sight before getting back to her feet to keep to her journey along the curve of the rock wall.

At dusk, she finds the open space of the desert unhampered by rock, and stretching on endlessly before her.

The young woman checks her Pip-Boy map, deciding to make camp amongst a small cluster of scrubby trees farther off. While clearing away pebbles from a patch of dirt between the trees, her empty stomach reminds her of the lack of her usually clockwork dinner with impassioned growls. Electing to ignore the raucous, she collects some dried branches and grass for a small fire heaping them at her feet. In the midst of her scavenging, the Prisoner gingerly pokes at her abdomen, feeling the noises growing louder. She sighs, checks the ammunition in her pistol, then sets out to catch evening dinner.

After an hour of careful hunting and poor marksmanship, serendipity rewards the young woman's hard work with a handful of prickly pear fruits, and a whole mole rat carcass. The strain of the day settles heavily on her body as the fruit and irradiated meat is scarfed down with reckless abandon. The Prisoner can hardly keep her eyes open, but makes the effort to give the bruises on her palms one last check before going to sleep.

The circular bruises have change from an angry red, to a throbbing purple and red, with the pain flaring up every now and then. The girl fishes out the bandages in her pack and binds the wounds tightly to mitigate the pain. "It'll have to do."

She throws one last branch into the fire before bedding down in the dirt for the night.

The Prisoner is woken up from a dead sleep by an unnatural howling yelp farther off. The young woman picks herself off the ground, clicking on her flashlight. The white light of her Pip-Boy crawls over the rocks and shrubs dotted about, only illuminating the vast nothingness that is the desert.

A twig snaps behind her in the distance.

The young woman whips around, aiming her light in the direction of the noise.

Unsettling yelps echo all around her from a steadily decreasing distance.

Her hand goes for the pistol tucked inside her thigh holster as she raises her voice defiantly at the shadows. "Come near me an I'll—" The girl drops to the ground, face first as a blunt object connects hard with the back of her head.

Four crudely armor figures walk quietly from the shadows, rifles drawn, as they surround her from all sides.


	4. The Raider Camp and the Outskirts

The Raider Camp

Under a cloudless, wide-open desert sky, through the rusted bars of a wide caged ceiling, the yellow-orange rays of a rising sun crawl across the rocks and shrubs of the endless vista beyond the barred walls.

A throbbing pulse ripples across the Prisoner's forehead, forcing her back to the world of the conscious. She grimaces against the sharp pain, cradling her splitting skull in both her bound hands as she drags herself up from the bleached, baked dirt.

Hugging the opposite cage wall is a thinly muscular Asian man in gray underpants and matching undershirt. His preoccupation with trying to twist and wiggle his wrists out of his own tightly knotted bonds is interrupted by the Prisoner's dumbfounded expression. "Well don't just sit there, help me out of this." The young man grunts and strains, but gives up after the chafing begins to turn the skin on his wrists bright red.

The young woman keeps her distance, blinking the haze from her eyes as she gives herself and the surroundings a once over. "Who are you? Where are we?"

"That's not important right now, getting out of here is." He rubs the rope against the cage bar, but the only thing with any give between the two is the rubbed off rust. The young man grunts his disapproval, giving up for the moment. "They took that fancy arm screen of yours, in case you were curious."

She pats the knots over her right wrist, narrowing her eyes at the young man.

"Lucky for you they couldn't take your clothes because of the lock on your collar."

From all the confusion of the past two days, she forgot about the metal ring sewn into the yellow collar of her mysterious jumpsuit. "How do you know all this," she wonders out loud as she traces the bulky square outline hidden inside the folds of material below her right ear.

"I watched them try to strip you." He rests his head against the bars of his prison, staring forlornly out towards the makeshift tents clustered around the large muddy pond right in the middle. "They gave up and took everything else off of you instead, then threw you in here."

The young lady pulls a frown at the immediate conclusion she draws. "Scavengers."

"Raiders actually. Dozens of them. Nomadic by the looks of their tents."

The Prisoner watches as only a few of the assumed raiders mill about the small encampment, cooking meat, standing guard at the largest tent, or just walking back and forth. "I see five, where's the rest of them?"

"Sleeping I guess. If that's true, let's keep it that way." With renewed interest, he tries once more to loosen his bonds, but fails just the same.

The girl gives the large knots around her petite wrists a once over. "I think I can get out of these." Using her small frame to her advantage, she twists the rope this way and that until she slips out of her bonds with very little effort done on her part.

"Well, would you look at that." One of the raider women outside passing by stops to look inside the large cage. "Somebody who can do magic tricks."

"Who are you," the Prisoner asks of the Mohawked woman pointedly. "And where are my things?"

Another Raider comes up beside the curious one, jingling a ring of old keys. "The Chief wants to see you two."

"We're not going anywhere," the underwear sporting young man tells them without a single iota of hesitation.

"We'll see about that, dog man," the Raider with keys tells him in a more menacing tone, bringing out the weapon in his thigh holster. He gestures to the other one next to him to help get the both of them out and over to the largest tent of the bunch.

The both of them are lead into a sizable tent with guards not only standing on the outside, but inside as well. Between the pair of armored raiders standing at attention is an unoccupied stone and hide throne of sorts at the back wall of the tent.

They're shoved before the empty throne and told to wait.

From behind stitched hide curtains, an old, bald man in even bulkier hide armor than the others seen milling about walks in nonchalantly, and takes a seat on the large chair, looking down his nose at them prisoners set before him. After many moments of tense silence, the old man speaks to the one in his underpants. "Even with all those pretty words your leaders keep yellin', the NCR isn't above keepin' slaves when it suits 'em."

"Slaves?" The young man furrows his brow in confusion.

"NCR?" The woman looks over at him with an expression of utter disbelief.

The old chieftain laughs, slapping his knee at the hilarity.

The under dressed soldier narrows his eyes, cocking his head inquisitively. "Just what do you call yourselves exactly? You don't look like any of the others that we watch out for."

"We're the Jackals," the old bald man says proudly. "And where we're from isn't important to your kind. We're here for your slaves and anythin' not nailed down inside that city of yours."

"Jackals…Jackals…" The young man ponders the familiarity of the name. "I know that name. You're supposed to be farther up North. What are you doing all the way out here?"

The Chieftain nods at the woman standing at the elbow of the young soldier.

The Mohawk sporting woman gives him a hard punch square in the gut, smiling as he coughs and drops to his knees, cradling his torso.

" _I'm_ askin' the questions, dog soldier," he sneers before glowering in the direction of the Prisoner. "As for you, girlie…"

She immediately throws her hands up in a gesture of surrender as the man at her elbow makes a fist. She cringes away, putting on an air of pathetic surrender. "I don't like violence! I'll tell you want you want!"

"Good. Now we're gettin' somewhere." With another nod of his head, the man takes a step back, relaxing his fist. "Tell me how to get inside that city of yours, slave."

She gulps, furrowing her brow. "It's...it's not very easy to get out. Me and my Master," she points at the regrouping soldier getting back to his feet. "We got lucky."

"You sound like you're stallin'." He pulls out a handgun and points it at the head of the young man, cocking it. "I don't like stallin'."

"No!" She tries to get between the under dressed man and the pistol, but the Jackal at her side restrains her tightly by the waist. "Don't kill him, please!"

"Tell me howta get inside the city on the other side of the mountain," he demands in a soft, even tone. "Or I'll kill your Master, and make you _my_ property."

"She's insane, there's nothing inside Tibbets worth killing for," the young man admits, staring down the barrel of the ten millimeter threatening him from across the room. "It's a prison for Republic law breakers, nothing more, nothing less."

"The door is in the cave with the Radscorpions! The...the bigger one was eating the smaller ones! It made it easier for us to get out and under the mountain!"

"So there's a door under the mountain." His itchy finger tightens around the trigger ever so slightly. "Where?"

She tries to squirm free of the bear hug around her petite waist, but it only tightens against her comparatively weaker resistance. "Where the metal door meets the floor! Go through the caves to the other side and there's a hole that leads up!"

"What about guards on the other side? How many? And how do I open the door?" He has a little laugh at the sheer gall of the girl's futile struggle against the greater strength of the Jackal with his arms around her waist.

"There's usually only two or three at a time, I swear! The screen you took from me," she nods at the dead Pip-Boy securely strapped around his right wrist. "It opens the door…but only for us," she adds as a quick aside. "Me and my Master are registered on the computers inside!"

"She's lying," the Republic soldier yells. "It's just a prison with cells and a single computer unit! And even that's too old to do anything more than turn lights off and on!"

The Chief puts away his pistol, sitting forward on his throne with earnest interest. "Computers, eh? Are they expensive? Can you take 'em apart?"

"I think so. They have lots of vacuum tubes and big screens." She does her best to feign just the right amount of ignorance, hoping they pick on the young man more than her. "I use to take care of them sometimes."

"Good." The leader snaps his fingers at the woman with shaved hair, standing to the left of his throne, holding a rusty rifle. "Send scouts to check for the place she made it through."

"You two," he gestures with a broad wave of his hand to the prisoners' guards. "Give 'em back their things and have 'em show you the way." He unlatches the useless, but unique, junk on his wrist, handing it and the itchy glove over to the woman with the rusted firearm. Before the shaved woman can leave, he takes her to one side and whispers some other directions to her. She nods an affirmative then follows the two prisoners outside.

The Raider Camp Outskirts

The faint silver of the half moon hanging high in the middle of the starry sky bathes the hard baked dirt and steep mountain side in a gentle, natural glow.

"I thought you said you knew the way," the Jackal scout comments, clearly irritated by the woman prisoner's third confused look at her Pip-Boy.

"I thought I did…" She frowns, unable to remember exactly where the cave was. "But all the trees look the same at night and the map doesn't have good markers." The girl taps the green screen of her wrist mounted computer.

Seeing their short tempers growing increasingly shorter with the young woman, and their lack of offensive weaponry, the fully uniformed soldier decides now is the time to take charge. "Just follow the mountain already," he orders, cutting ahead of her and trudging onward. "The door was in the cave, remember."

The Prisoner nods obediently, keeping in step behind her "Master".

"There." The bear soldier points at the curve of the shallow cave entrance marked with the wood sign. "That's where the metal door is."

"That's where we feed Spud," one of the scouts mentions in passing as they reach the metal hatch inside the mountain cave.

"I hope she ain't hungry," the other one tells his comrade, ordering the soldier to open the hatch.

He does so without a fight, peering down into the absolute darkness of the interior.

The Jackal with less hair shoves the girl toward the dark pit. "Ladies first." He cackles quietly, pointing his rifle at her.

She takes a cue from the young man and doesn't put up a fight. With both her shaking hands, she lowers herself into the dark pit, scanning her immediate surroundings for any signs of movement, small, large, or otherwise.

The other prisoner drops to one knee, leaning down into the shadows below. "Hey," he whispers toward the direction of the faint movements mere feet down. "You alive?"

"Yes. Be careful," she whispers back up to him, disappearing around the corner.

The Republic soldier tells their captors all is clear before they tell him to go down next. Awkwardly, he lowers himself down, stumbling on a few pebbles as his heavy boots hit the uneven floor.

The Prisoner immediately presses a finger to her lips, waving him away from the opening. She broadly motions with a rigidly pointed finger at a large, irregular shape, moving around in the dark.

He grows stiff, assuming it to be the worst outcome he can imagine. He feels a small hand wrap around his left elbow and yank him down and away toward an even darker corner of the cave.

The loud, uncaring noises of the two scouts draws the irregular figure toward the opening.

"Hey! Where did you two go!" The scout on the left aims his rifle in no particular direction, trying to get a glimpse of the lost prisoners.

Loud scratches and chitters draw the pair's attention to the large mass hurrying toward them, they scream and fire at the quickly moving shadow as it brings down a large pointed tail on the nearer of the men, catching him in the chest piece.

The right Jackal gurgles out a wet cry of agony before slumping to the ground motionless. The gargantuan creature rips it's pointed tail from the flimsy armor, directing its ire at the other man now shooting frantically.

The Prisoner gestures to the young man at her side to keep as still and quiet as possible until the giant animal has had its fill of human.

Once the thunderous cracks of gun fire finally stop, the loud, thick tearing of flesh tells the survivors that their guard is no more, and they may be next on the menu.

The soldier gestures at the still open hatch leading the way out as the scorpion drag pieces away to corners unknown. He scoops up a bloodied rifle, watching as the young woman climbs back up with ease. The bear soldier slams shut the hatch, following her away from there and into the dark, cool desert. The bolt of the stolen rifle is slid back in a singular fluid motion. "Yield prisoner," he yells at her jumpsuit-clad back.

The young lady's face droops as a heavy wave of regret washes over her entire being.

"I said yield!"

The Prisoner raises her hands above her head as she turns around slowly.

The young soldier gives her torso a hard stare, before deciding to look down the sight of his rifle.

Even frightened and appalled, her clever brain instinctively jumps into action. "What are you doing! I just saved your life!"

"You were in isolation," he tells her, keeping the tone of his voice as steady as his aim. "I'm not taking any chances."

"I don't understand! What does that have to do with anything!"

"Area four, section nine, isolation. Automatic doors, advanced learning criteria met, and isolation imposed by the doctor."

The young lady narrows her eyes at the soldier. "Then you were there when the alarms started ringing. You saw your own kind letting us go." She drops her arms to her sides defiantly. "How am I supposed to listen to you in that uniform when other ones wearing the same thing let us go?" She watches as his grip on the rifle stock falters.

The Republic soldier hardens his voice, trying to muster up his bravado. "They'll be dealt with by the chain of command."

"Then shouldn't your first duty be to your comrades-in-arms," she wonders out loud, angry by the turn of events. "Surely traitors in the ranks are more important than some of us breaking out of one prison in the middle of nowhere."

He has a long, serious think about her words, turning them over and over carefully. "You sound like a silver-tongue Dissident, but you lack training of some kind. The kind their spies use to have."

The Prisoner rolls her eyes at the young man and the propaganda he's obviously been spoon-fed in boot camp. "Everyone knows the Dissidents were assimilated a long time ago when the Republic started moving farther west." She notices the guard keeping his gun pointed, but relaxing his stance. "Besides, their spies would know how to take care of themselves in the wilderness, I obviously don't."

He mulls over her words for a few minutes, then lowers his rifle. "You're a good liar. It's probably the only thing you're good at." He gestures with his weapon muzzle out towards the great dirt nothing that is the desert. "Go, and don't come back. You're dead."

She breathes a mental sigh of relief, praising whatever god watches over her for her successful bluff. "I can see you're a good man. Too good for the Republic." The woman makes tracks in the opposite direction, kicking up wisps of dust as she runs away.


	5. Fort Abandon

_(Author's Note: The Joshua Graham of Van Buren was conceptualized as being an Evil Legionnaire with a penchant for melee, however, the Joshua Graham of New Vegas contradicts his earlier inception in most every aspect. Since the notes for Van Buren state this as the third Fallout game in Interplay's series, some of the characteristics of VB's Joshua will have to be altered to fit in with both Interplay's notes and Bethesda's continuation of Caesar's Legion lore. As promised, I will try to keep artistic liberties to a minimum.)_

In the distance, two square monuments stand proud and lonely under the sweltering heat, surrounded by broken chain link fencing.

The Prisoner licks her dry lips, wiping the drops of sweat from her brow as she squints in the direction of the shapes on the horizon. "Jokes on you, soldier, the Captain didn't lie to me." She cackles dryly at her own cleverness, deciding to investigate what she thinks is her new haven.

At the end of an eroded dirt road, the left square reveals itself as a large, smooth-faced cement sign with a red brick border, and broken letters reading " _Fort A_ ". A wooden plank haphazardly nailed over the rest of the second word reads ABANDON in bold, black letters.

A dust devil whips hot wind and small pieces of debris across the fort's large open courtyard.

"Abandon fortitude maybe," she wonders to herself in the absolute quiet of the surroundings, side-stepping the broken arm of a defunct guard shack.

Freestanding aluminum barracks and large cement and brick buildings arrange themselves in perfectly straight rows to the left and right of the dirt courtyard. Buried tire deep is the occasional military green truck or one of the many defunct vehicles abandoned in the desert wastes, the paint stripped to the bare minimum by the heat of the sun.

"As the monoliths stand behind," she gestures vaguely in the direction of the sign and guard post. "The curve of the land stretches towards the end." The Prisoner kicks at the dirt a few times, trying to see if there's something left of a road to unearth, but only finds more dust. She frowns, squatting and tilting her head low, toward the ground.

The perfect rows of buildings and barracks draw out a straight line towards the other side of the large complex.

"Maybe that's the curve of the land?" With no other clue than the lines of an old poem, she walks onward, surrounded by the ominous whistling of the hot wind through broken windows.

The path ends in a cul-de-sac of cement buildings labeled with faded, once important words like "administration" and "barracks".

"The widest place under the mountains he said." She spreads her arms out lengthwise, measuring the sides of the buildings under the baking sun. "Treasure here I come." The girl makes her way to a long, brick building at the farthest left of the fort grounds. The fallen sign covered in dirt at the entrance way reads "Su—p—y—Va—o—se". The young lady mulls over the sign before promptly stepping over it and pushing the rusted double doors open.

Hot sunlight streams in through the dingy, cracked windows, shining across the wood and metal faces of over-turned crates and broken chests, divested of their contents. She licks her parched lips, hoping for the best but expecting the worst as she picks a stack of crates and begins her search.

By the time the Prisoner looks up from her endless crate unpacking, she sees the yellow and white of the sun streaming inside the hot interior turning a soft orange around the edges. She licks at the drops of cool, salty sweat beading her upper lip as she dusts off the top of a large, metal crate with the words " _Survival Gear, series B_ " stamped on the lid under a circle of white stars.

The young lady plops herself on the cement floor, laughing long and loud at what she perceives is the old man's twisted sense of humor. "Combat Survivalist 'till the end you always said." She brings out her screwdriver and bobby pin, picking the difficult lock carefully. "If that old man weren't already dead, I'd kiss his boots."

The rusty lock clicks open with a hard squeak. She throws back the lid to survey the contents of this so-called "treasure". "Two rolls of bandages, an irradiated water bottle, a first aid kit, one Stimpak—are you kidding me?!" Excitedly, she hefts out a large, two-handed crossbow, blowing off the fine layer of dust settled over the weapon. She eyes the carved insignia of the two-headed bear on the stock. "These bows aren't even used anymore." The Prisoner checks down the sight before groping around the crate it came in for ammunition.

At the far end of the warehouse, foreign yells can be heard from behind a wall of haphazardly stacked crates.

The Prisoner's ears perk up at the loud echoes coming closer. Bolts in hand, she scrambles behind a pile of broken wood planks waiting for the nonsensical voices to move of into the distance. When the yelling softens to a dull roar, she slips the bow onto her back as she makes her way across the warehouse as quietly as she can. The girl fits her tiny frame between the crates, finding a half open door leading out to a large courtyard surrounded by dilapidated buildings.

At the far left, just barely out of sight of the warehouse are three deeply bronzed men in scantily clad tire and hide armor surround a head taller, bound someone in red lacquered armor and matching knee-length skirt as they lead him towards a tilting wooden structure nestled behind a grouping of half-circle buildings labeled "Barracks" followed by a letter.

Mostly to satisfy her over-whelming curiosity, she follows the spear-toting men as far as the corner of the closest barracks, keeping out of sight as she pokes her nose around the corner of the hot cement.

The tribal at the bound man's immediate front turns to stick the pointed metal head of his spear into the polished red of his chest plate. "No more tricks, Utman," he demands as the three lead him up the scafolding.

A wry smirk spreads across the skirted man's beat red face. "Go back to the holes you crawled out from, and pray to your false idols that I never return, again." The menacing baritone of his voice serves only to anger his jailers even more.

Ignoring the shiver sent up her spine by his very sure words, the young lady backs away, reaching for the door behind her. The dirtied hinges fold inward with a shuddering creak as she slips inside noiselessly, locking it shut. On hands and knees, the girl crosses the rows of dusty bunks to the only open window facing the gallows just outside.

With two spears pointed directly at his chest, the third tribal yanks down the knotted rope over the crossbeam, slipping it over their prisoner's neck.

The girl slips the toe of her boot into the cocking stirrup as she locks the string back into the latch just under the sight. She takes a bolt from the cylinder secured to her waist and slides it into the flight groove, taking careful aim at the noose.

"Now you die," one of the others says.

"And stay dead," the last one adds, yanking the trap door under his feet open.

The shot of her crossbow cuts clean through the aged rope, dropping the hanging man to the ground.

The scantily clad man standing on the platform gets an arrow to the shoulder, that forces him to drop his weapon. He points to the only open window of the nearest cement building yelling excitedly in his native tongue.

With spears in hand, the other two make their way swiftly and silently around the building to the entrance. As they mercilessly try to beat down the locked door blocking their way inside, the occupant deftly climbs out the same open window and scrambles toward the defenseless tribesman.

He takes an awkward swing at the girl in the blue jumpsuit with his unwounded arm but she deftly dodges it. His assailant smashes his face in with the stock of her crossbow, knocking him out cold.

The man beneath the gallows furiously tries to free his hands as the girl wordlessly commands him to follow her to the other side of the courtyard after removing the rope around his neck.

The warriors smash in the door, scattering in all directions as they search for the one who shot at them. They upturn bunks and rifle through free-standing lockers, finding no sign of their opponent.

The young lady chastises the man in red as she takes one of the arrows from her belt and saws away at the ropes binding his hands. "If you don't move, they'll catch you."

"I'm not afraid of those primitives, girl," he blusters, rubbing his wrists in circles.

One of them points out the open window at the empty scaffolding, then the girl in the blue jumpsuit, yelling at his comrades inside.

"But I am!" She grabs his left forearm and yanks, but to no affect.

The brown-haired man in the red armor sneers at her cowardice, yanking his arm free. "Then you're not worth my time." He gets to his feet as the primitives come rushing around the side of the barracks. He grabs the weapon of the man knocked out cold, and confidently points it at the group, giving a guttural war cry as he charges at them.

"You idiot," the girl hisses under her breath, reloading her crossbow. She aims down the sight taking a deep, calming breath.

The world around her grinds to a sudden halt, coloring itself a grid of neon green. She follows her first instinct and aims for the leg of the second closest tribal to the skirted man letting go of her breath.

Wood and metal clash within moments of each other, followed by a stifled "hrk!" from the second man coming up behind his angered bronze brethren.

The Prisoner uses the momentary delay in the second man's actions to pull off another shot to the same leg.

He falls to the ground, grasping his leg and crying out in pain as blood gushes from the torn flesh of his calf.

Their prisoner's look of unadulterated anger twists into manic hatred as he goes hand to hand with the last two of the party.

The girl takes aim with her bow, using her Pip-Boy once more. She gets him square in the dominant shoulder before he can bring the jagged metal tip across his leather-clad torso.

"This is my fight, Gentile," he snarls at the girl reloading, whacking the first attacker across the cranium with the pole arm of his spear. "Leave me to it!" He barely dodges an upward swing from the crippled tribesman. He grimaces at the thin stream of blood seeping from the uneven cut on his right cheek, taking a few steps back as a precaution against the next blow.

The girl shoots the unwounded one in the leg, stopping him mid attack.

His faltering gives the skirted man a good enough window to ram his spear head into his torso and twist it out of ire.

The girl's voice rings out a shrill warning. "Behind you!"

As the red armored man turns with hands outstretched, the mania in his eyes softens to a sort of controlled, quiet panic as the last bronze primitive uses the last of his strength to catch him in the side.

The crudely shaped metal point pushes through the layers of stitched hardened leather shielding the lower half of his torso.

With fathomless panic still in his eyes, he wraps his large hands around the throat of the tribal and squeezes the breath out of him. He stands over the scantily clad man as he falls to his knees and gasps his last breath. The red man heaves ragged breaths as he clumsily clutches at his side, trying to stop the profuse bleeding seeping from under his plating.

The Prisoner slips her bow onto her back and darts over to the man as he goes to lean against the nearest solid object.

"Sit down," she gently orders, readjusting his hands over the worst of the seepage. "You're loosing too much blood."

"I told you..." he clenches his teeth against the waves of pain throbbing from his right hip. "To leave me!"

She elects to ignore his snark while he's on the verge of death. "I'll be back, hold on." The young lady runs back into the warehouse through the open door and grabs the supplies from the metal crate. She hurries back dumping everything in the hard dirt as she falls to her knees next him. "I'm not a doctor, but I know first-aid," the girl in the blue jumpsuit tells him in a shaky voice as she saws away at the tight stitching of the leather strips. Her unsteady hands peel them away from the bloody mess underneath as she surveys the damage with a slight cringe. "Lay down on your side. Put your head on that bag." She drops her inventory satchel to the ground as he slumps over it without thinking, tucking it under his dizzy head.

In his hazy brain the plastic crack of a first-aid kits lid brings him back to his senses. He can feel the soft weight of wadded bandages and the sharp, elongated pricks of a large needle dipping in and out of his cold, but still sensitive skin. "I'm going to die in this hellhole," he quietly intones without a single iota of emotion. "Finally." He tenses as he swallows the scream of pain sitting at the back of his bloodied throat.

The Prisoner grabs his hip to still it, apologizing wholeheartedly. She doesn't realize he's passed out until she asks him to roll over so she can wrap the last of her clean bandages around his whole torso. Using every ounce of her meager strength, she sits him up to finish the wrapping and manages to drag him into the closest building. "It's already "unf!" nighttime," she complains, dragging him across the dirt under the burgeoning moon.

Hazy swirls of smoke curl into the warm, night air through the double window of the empty military office. The smell of burning wood invades her nostrils, bring an abstract sense of peace to the foreboding nature of the place called "Fort Abandon". The young woman watches as the elongated shadows of herself and the mysterious man she saved dance back and forth over the cement corners of the office interior. Her tired eyes fall over the still sleeping man and his naked, bandaged torso laied out on an old matress. The Stimpak she used earlier to stop the bleeding didn't seem to work, so she spent most of her time applying pressure manually until the stitches settled in properly.

The red shellac of his chest plate brings back an old itch she tries not to scratch. She humors herself with random thoughts instead. "I bet that paint is expensive to make. How much would that red shiny stuff catch at a vendor, I wonder?" The Prisoner flexes her ten fingers out of nerves, grimacing at the sharp pains from the middle of her palms. "Ouchie! Hurts worse!" Finding her thought exercises pointless at curbing her thieving enthusiasm, she slowly approaches the man at the other side of the small fire on her hands and knees. The woman licks her lips nervously, leaning over the sleeping man to read the armor insignia on his far shoulder. "Praetor ad Occi —" The last word is cut off by a hand suddenly encircling her throat.

The man's eyes pop open, his brow knitting together in anger. "You hesitated, now you die."

The young woman can feel the muscular hand around her throat tighten, even as she tries to pry it off with both of hers.

The man slowly sits up, still holding her by the throat almost effortlessly. "Your Praetorian will find your body hung from the highest post of this place, gutted and stripped." He sees fear in her brown, doe eyes as she gasps for air. He brings her reddening face closer to his, breathing his still pained breaths onto her tanned cheeks. "And don't try to feign ignorance, I know your Frumentari tricks."

Not daring to fight the clearly crazed man keeping her in such a compromising position, the Prisoner forces tiny responsive gasps in her defense, but his steely grip around her neck is far greater than both her yanking hands. The wounded man laughter dies on his lips as the green outline on her wrist screen goes from happy to mildly concerned as she struggles against him. He grunts, pushing her away as he releases her throat.

The lady scrambles to the other side of the room, coughing and rasping the breath back into her lungs. She rubs at her throat, keeping her watery eyes trained on the man in the firelight.

"I should have known better. You're too weak to be a Legionnaire."

Her brow furrows in confusion. "Why," she croaks out over her coughing fits.

He heaves a breath of disgust, laying back down. "Killing you serves no purpose." The tall man fixates on the cement ceiling, almost disappointed at the lack of fight.

As her nerves and throat settle down, the girl keeps vigil at the other end of the room, keeping a bolt held tightly in her hands as an added measure. Try as she might, though, her willingness to stay awake longer than the wounded man wanes as her eyelids grow heavier and heavier each passing minute. Without so much as a peep from her assailant, she slips off into a deep, restful sleep, still clutching her arrow tightly to her chest.


	6. Fort Abandon pt2

Thin streams of warm sunlight filter in from the only intact window, luring the Prisoner back to the waking world. From a deep, restful sleep, She yawns and stretches, glancing over at the unclean unoccupied mattress at the opposite end of the small room.

She jumps to her feet, the grip on the arrow bolt in her hand tightening. "Crap..." Every muscle in her body goes rigid as she listens for any rumblings of a person outside the building. Beyond the battered, Pre-War door, however, the oppressive silence gives no hint of movement. She slips the arrow back into the tubular quiver at her left hip, relaxing as the absolute quiet lingers on. "I hope he's not bleeding out, wherever he is." The Prisoner adjusts the crossbow on her back, stepping outside to meet the new morning sun.

At the end of the left row of barracks, she blows the dust off the worded placard next to the broken in faded blue front door. "Pos...Ca-fice," she reads out loud before stepping inside.

A rectangular counter of the same faded blue color dominates the middle of the room still cluttered with paperwork, pencils, and yellowing stamps. The young woman peeps through the half-ajar door behind the counter seeing mountains of old letters and packages spilling out of their overturned storage carts.

She makes her way to the left-hand adjacent walls lined bottom to top with metal boxes no wider than a pocketbook. She examines the scraped face of the circular locks on the gouged metal doors. "Looks a little difficult." The Prisoner reaches one hand to her dark braid pulling her warped hairpin from the folds of her braid as the other hand delves into her left leg pocket of her jumpsuit.

Within minutes, the contents of each Pos Cafice strongbox find its way to her satchel. Most of them hold old letters to long gone addresses but some appear to have been in use recently judging by the contents. "Nine-millimeter bullets, Pre-Wsr money notes, five bottle caps, and some water," the Geiger counter in her Pip-boy clicks at a measured pace in the proximity of the grubby glass bottle as she forces open the tin cap. "Some _irradiated_ water." The Prisoner plugs her nose as she chugs down the clear liquid in one long, satisfying drink.

With her thirst sated, she passes behind the counter to the half-open door, kicking the mail out of her way. The fine layer of dust that pervades everything in the Fort has been shifted in places, most of the displacement centered around a wrenched open packing crate.

Bulky black flack vests spill onto the largest of the pile of letters in the middle of the room. Out of curiosity, the Prisoner picks one up, turning it over in her hands. Sitting just below both the shoulders of the top-most Velcro-latched pockets are the letters S, L, C, P, and D. "P.D," she repeats out loud, running her fingers over the thick embroidery. "Police department? SLC Police Department?" The woman sets the article back down, squinting at the crate's faded mailing tag. "Re…turn…to…Sen…der…?"

After a few minutes of digging through mountains of mail, she finds nothing of interest except two bobby pins and random bills of Pre-War money. She takes it and leaves back out the front door.

Behind barracks C and E, a pair of sun-bleached double doors lie broken inwards at the threshold of a squat, square building labeled "M-ss Ha-". The splinters and chunks are scattered in the dust of a cracked black and gray tiled floor, giving perfect contrast to the dirt boot prints leading toward the back.

Questioning eyes linger on the man-made path between the elongated overturned tables and rusty chairs scattered helter-skelter through which the prints have previously navigated with ease. At the end of the path, a brushed steel door hangs ajar on a single hinge behind a serving counter layered in more dust and sand. The corners of her dry, pink lips pull into a concerned frown as she peers through the open doorway. The thought of a tall angry stranger skulking around unseen gives her goosebumps. The young lady shivers away the thought, heading onward toward the far door. "Was it him?" The Prisoner's shoulders involuntarily tense.

The dead silence magnifies the clopping of her wooden soles against the loose monochrome tiles as she crosses the wide open room in parallel to the steps laid out in the thick dust.

A rush of unwanted nostalgia chafes against her tense mood as she squeezes past the metal door into a defunct kitchen area. She heaves a sigh, kicking an empty can across the all too familiar floor. It clangs to a stop against an overturned gas oven. The trappings are a near carbon copy of the kitchen hall at Tibbets, right down to the number of locked pantries nestled between the rows of stoves. "I ran in a proverbial circle."

Her finicky stomach reminds her of the lackluster attempt at finding food earlier.

The young lady ignores the unwanted pangs of familiarity, deciding to search the rust-streaked dented pantries for something within the realm of edible.

The first two open to a mostly empty interior excluding the occasional opened can left laying in the fine dirt. The third is closed tight with a bulky square lock wrapped in layers of knotted rusty wire.

A soft frown curves the side of her mouth as she examines the wrapped metal monstrosity. She gives it a hard yank, but the locking ring holds fast. With a resolute sigh, she takes her screwdriver in hand and begins gently prying at the wiry body until the end of her tool finds a hidden niche between the layers. She levers left and right stopping only when the body of the lock seems to fall to pieces under the dull reddish knots. The Prisoner, deciding to keep the mechanism, places it in her bag before peeking inside the cabinet.

Sitting on the middle shelf is a dingy white plastic box tied closed with a frayed rope. On the lid under the rope knot, the large red plus has been drawn over with a pointed ended cross inside a circle. She turns it over in her hands, noting a faint alcohol smell wafting from the crack across the bottom. Finding the symbol unfamiliar, The broken box is placed in her side satchel for further study later.

A metallic thump echoes from the other side of the kitchen.

The Prisoner snaps her attention toward the noise, laying her hand on the stock of the crossbow slung, onto her back. She inches closer, sliding her weapon quietly into her tense hands.

The metallic thump repeats, shaking the double doors of one of the many pantries lining the far right wall. It shakes loose one of the two planks of wood stuck through the handles.

She loads the heavy bow, aiming it at the cabinet. As she reaches out cautiously toward the door, the thing inside bursts out, leaping onto the end of the weapon. The Prisoner follows her first instinct and fires, grazing the underbelly of the agitated Radroach as it takes flight.

It zips to the other side of the kitchen, scrambling out a broken window as another arrow grazes its carapace.

The young woman lets out a sigh of relief, shaking away her goosebumps. "Ugh! Those things give me the creeps!" Deciding not to tempt fate, she leaves the building as quick as she can, keeping up her search for a meal.

Rolling the unbuttoned sleeves of his stolen white dress shirt to his elbows, the angry stranger reaches overhead and grabs two handguns of different sizes, gritting his teeth as he brings his arms back down. "Damn stitches." The wounded man adds the two handguns to the amassed pile of useless and broken pistols on the munitions table behind him, proceeding to dismantle them.

"I thought you left." The matter-of-fact statement comes from the petite, crossbow-wielding silhouette outlined against the sunlit door frame of the neglected armory. "I didn't see you anywhere."

"Have you come to check on your patient, doctor?" He grimaces at the sudden twinge of pain from his sore torso throbbing under the Velcro fastenings of the bulletproof vest. "Or will you try to run me off like the other primitives you emulate?"

The young lady narrows her eyes at the ungrateful stranger, squaring her shoulders. "Some people usually say 'thank you' to the people that save their lives."

He pushes a haughty huff through his nostrils. "I never asked for your help, nor was it warranted." He loads a fresh clip into the larger of the two guns cocking the hammer as he points it at her head. He notices the small woman immediately resist the urge to reach for her belt, her brown eyes never wavering from his.

The two strangers stand stock still at opposite ends of the room, sizing one another up in dead silence for minutes on end. He uncocks the hammer, bringing the pistol down as an insincere smirk pulls at the corner of his thin lips.

The young lady shivers, not bothering to hide her grimace. "You're creepier than the Radroaches."

"You _didn't_ flinch," he says, tucking the pistol down the front of his belt. "I _wasn't_ mistaken."

"I think if you wanted me dead, you would have done it already." The girl in the blue jumpsuit puts away her bow. "Why didn't you is what I'm wondering. You could have killed me when your hand was around my neck, or when I was asleep, but you didn't so much as move an inch after you saw something." She muses on the statement. "I don't know what, but something."

Tight-lipped, the stranger takes a box of ammunition in each hand brushing past her on his way out.

The Prisoner hesitates before following after him. "Can I at least get your name? Or should I just call you 'Mister Brown Hair, Blue Eyes'?" She keeps a few steps behind him, watching for any sudden movements.

"Telling you my name would serve even less of a purpose than killing you."

"Well, I can't just call you 'hey you'. That's rude."

The young man scoffs at her manners, filling the pockets of his sharply creased dress pants with the taken ammunition.

"I'm going to have to make something up since you won't tell me." Prisoner attempts to cut in front of him to stop his walk back toward the cluster of buildings she came from, but the man slaps his hand against the side of her head and shoves her unceremoniously out of his way and onto the hot dirt. Stunned, the girl regroups, dusting off the seat of her jumpsuit pants. "You creep," she shouts after him. I'm trying to be nice!"

"Stay out of my way, Gentile, or I'll have your head, " he yells back, disappearing between the barracks.

Uneventful hours have passed since the blue-eyed stranger's last interaction with the strangely dressed woman, and from his hiding place on the roof of an administrative building, he has observed his petite savior collect scraps of wood, make a rudimentary fire pit, and awkwardly drag large crates of centuries-old provisions from inside a collapsed motor pool. Through his pair of found binoculars, she goes on with the business of carefully picking through the dirty wood crates, occasionally coming across a can or bottle that she can't help but turn over in her bandaged hands like a child with a new toy, oblivious to the eyes keeping tabs on her from afar. "Still digging in the dirt like your idiot ancestors for poisoned scraps. Typical."

He forces himself to steady his racing thoughts as he beats down his instinctual nervousness with sheer force of will. His limited interactions with her have shown her competent enough to have mastery over an unwieldy weapon as well as possessing the nerve to kill, but as to the reason why she hasn't tried to finish him off in his compromised state is a mystery to him.

A sudden stabbing twinge from his tightly bandaged right side reminds his suspicious mind of the female stranger's goodwill. He bites back the pain, grimacing through gritting teeth.

The Prisoner is reminded of her hand injuries as she tries to crack open a can of Cram. Her stiffening fingers succumb to a series of acute, painful cramps, that leave her fingertips throbbing. She curses, removing the now dirty bandage wound around her gloveless hand.

The man's gut reaction to her presence is justified as he spies through his lenses the red and purple circular wound in the middle of her palm and top of her hand. "Coincidence," he sneers from his perch, paying special attention to her other hand. The matched set of wounds turns his stomach in knots, forcing him to swallow the hot bile at the back of his dry throat. "It's a damn coincidence, " he growls, putting away his binoculars and reaching for his spear.

The Prisoner takes a contemplative sniff, comparing both scents from her left and right wounds. "I don't _think_ it's infected." As a safety precaution, the young lady brings out the dingy white, alcohol smelling box from her inventory, carefully removing the rope.

The contents yield no Stimpak but does have an assortment of glass jars and tied hide bags. The biggest of the jars reads **Saguaro Jelly, food** in large black handwritten letters. It contains a dark red gelatin with bits of seeds. "I need disinfectant, not food."

She picks out one of the bags that smells the most of alcohol and removes the cold lump inside it. To her relief, it's a freshly soaked, perfectly wound cloth bandage. Without a second thought, she measures out even halves and redresses her hands, trying her best to ignore the stinging pricks from her still open wounds.

The young man leaves his perch, weapon in hand and crosses the fort grounds to meet the young lady out front of the motor pool. He fishes into his side satchel, grabbing a bundle of Radroach meat from among his collected provisions and drops it unceremoniously at her feet.

She looks up at the spear-toting stranger with a scowl, her thoughts snapping back to the gallows she saved him from. "What do you want…Hanged Man?"

The stranger laughs softly. "Fitting, even from one of your kind."

The Prisoner gathers the scattered bits of freshly gutted insect and places it at the intruder's dress shoed feet. "If this is your way of apologizing, I don't accept."

"Its not an apology, " he clarifies, crossing behind her to grab an empty crate. "It's what you primitives would call a 'fair trade'." The Hanged Man sets it upside down across from her on the other side of the middling campfire. "Food for answers."

Before her pride can get in the way of a diplomatic rebuttal, her still empty stomach reminds the girl of her precarious eating situation. The Prisoner mentally kicks herself before preventing.

The head and shoulders taller stranger carefully picks his first question, watching her young face keenly. "You're not a Frumentarii, but you _are_ an assassin. One for the NCR perhaps?"

"Because everyone with half a brain is suddenly an assassin, " she retorts in a curt tone, impaling pieces of gooey pale meat on a piece of rebar and placing it halfway in the fire.

He sees her roll her eyes and watches her dry, pink lips move, but nothing so obviously telling as shock or a nervous twitch. "You're young but weak, so perhaps a failed one," he tells her from across the smoky fire.

She scoffs at his failed logic. "Are you sure the pain isn't making you paranoid, Hanged Man?"

"The ease of your oration and manipulation. It's second nature to you; to disarm your opponent with words and body language rather than a weapon." He sees her dark brown eyes darting over his sharp features for something in particular. "When my hand was around your throat, your body was scared, but your eyes were almost serene."

"Because I was passing out," she points out in a stern tone. "You do know what 'passing out' means, right?"

"Even out here in this dirt inferno, most people are not as ready for death as you seem to be. To have a gut reaction to your own imminent demise in such a calm way, it would have to be trained into you first."

With her doe eyes at rest, she sits her chin on her palm, looking him over thoughtfully. "You look like a philosopher, or maybe an Arbiter. Was your family Arbiters too, or are you the only one?" She takes a sardonic tone with him turning over the rebar kebab with her free hand. "I can pull obscure occupations out of the sky too, you know."

He smirks, getting up from his seat. "I'll have more questions tomorrow."

"You really should be careful with those stitches." Her naturally cheerful timbre is laced with a cold, softness that bothers the angry man enough to stop him in his tracks. "If they happen to rip open, even a little, you'll bleed out and die. Especially in your sleep."

The Hanged Man isn't quite sure why this particular nugget of information bothers him enough to be concerned, but he is. _"No."_ The Outdoorsman in him knows why. _"It's her eyes. Always her eyes."_

Even the biggest of the desert predators is always on alert, always sizing up their competition, but not her. It's as if she knows he's a wounded, blustering fool lost in the wild, and the animal part of his scared brain lashes out. "Is that a threat, Gentile?"

"No," the Prisoner stares him dead in the eye, keeping her composure stalwart. "Just a fact."

He's seen enough animals in the wild to know when the predator has their prey cornered. The man does as instinct tells him and leaves. He musters his bravado one last time in the form of a veiled threat, but the girl doesn't flinch.

She sticks her tongue out at him as he turns away, picking the cooked offering out of the fire for a hearty, angry bite. "Creep," the Prisoner mumbles with a full mouth.


End file.
